Talking New Media Has Shut Down

Talking New Media is an industry website that focused on digital publishing and primarily covered newspapers and magazines. The company operated launched in January of 2010, three weeks before the introduction of the iPad and the early days were spent on the Google’s Blogger platform and in 2013 started their own website. Today, TNM has officially closed their doors, laying off a handful of people. The site is shuttered and currently none of their archives are available to read.

There is no specific reason cited to why the website closed down, presumably they could not make the blogging model financially viable anymore. The world of digital publishing has grown significantly since the original Kindle launched in 2007 and for the next five years everyone wanted to know more about it. All major publishers now have their own production teams with in-house tools and there are hundreds of author communities that talk about the trials and tribulations of self-publishing.

Dozens of blogs and websites that used to have millions of monthly readers are on the decline. Digital Book World could not make blogging viable, charging for industry reports or putting on one of the premier conferences. They stopped posting six months ago and were eventually bought out and the conference is now moving to Nashville. Gigaom also closed their doors a number of years ago and they had one of the best editorial and writing teams in the business.

One of the big reasons why professional digital publishing websites have seen a decline in revenue is due to more companies not employing Google Adwords anymore. Many of the top brands are now spending more money targeted Facebook campaigns, sponsored Tweets or on Amazon. There are only certain ways blogs and websites can make money, most of them is via Adsense.

Although many news outlets have shuttered their doors and hardly anyone is talking about the business of e-readers, books or digital publishing, Good e-Reader will continue to do so. One of the reasons why we have been successful is our multimedia approach. We have been producing Youtube unboxing and review videos since 2009 and have a tremendous audience. The website has over 1.3 million monthly readers and we also develop our own hardware. Our goal right now, is the same one we had when we launched – to chronicle the rise of audiobooks/ebooks and how traditional publishing is being disrupted by digital.

Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past ten years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and Verge.